Trials of Travel - Pt. 2

 

A delayed flight; a missed connection to Australia? I thought this was bad enough, but wait … there's more.

I finally boarded the delayed Boston flight for San Francisco. I was in Boarding Group 597 … read that the last group to be boarded on a packed-full flight. The gate agent asked me to check my carry-on suitcase … no room in the overhead bins. Since I already had one big duffel checked, I thought “what the heck?”. I hesitated … my camera and good stuff was in the carry-on ... but I finally succumbed. I checked the bag. Seasoned travelers know this is a mistake.

The flight was long, cramped and boring. It's what you might expect in cattle class, but it was tolerable. I was getting closer to home, I reasoned. When we arrived, the gate was occupied and we waited on the tarmac another 15 minutes before deplaning. No agent greeted the flight with information about getting hotel vouchers and only with persistence did I finally find a wandering United rep who pointed me towards the service kiosk … a mile or so away.

What I saw when I approached the Customer Service desk was utterly astonishing. The line stretched more than a city block down the terminal. Disgruntled, tired people milled, sat on the floor, grousing, texting and chatting. I made my way to the end of the line, but after 15-20 minutes I spied another wandering United rep who pointed out three supervisors standing on the sidelines, looking at the ever-growing, moving-at-a-snail's-pace line. I approached, interrupted their lively conversation (one guy had just dropped the F-bomb in a phone conversation) and explained that I was already re-booked. Couldn't I just obtain my promised hotel and meal vouchers and be on my way? Well, it seems they were short-handed (wow...that was news), but more staff was coming and it should only be another 45 minutes and yes, I had to stand in line.

Some two and half hours later, a rumor passed through the line that there were no more hotel vouchers and in fact, there hadn't been for the last couple of hours. I sought out that same supervisor. “There are no more hotel vouchers”, he confirmed. “Sorry.” Really? He was sorry? Why ever wouldn't someone have informed people that they were waiting in line at 0200 Pacific time (now 5am for us Bostonians)? WTF?

I walked the long walk down to baggage claim in a huff to find a football field full of unclaimed luggage sprawling out before me. The monitor no longer showed the arriving Boston flight and again, no agents were around. After 40 minutes, I finally located my luggage and rather than pay $5 for use of a luggage cart, I scrounged around on the sidewalk for an abandoned one and lucked out immediately. I found my new, bright turquoise carry-on suitcase immediately. The black duffel was more of a challenge. I wrestled that 50 pound monster onto the cart As I attempted to load the carry-on, however, I noticed it had been modified slightly … the pull-out handle had been totally sheared off. The line for Baggage Claim Complaints was predictably long … that complaint would have to wait.

After several calls, I found a $100 plus tax room at the local LaQuinta. Their airport shuttle had stopped at midnight, so I cabbed it a mile for another $20. Breakfast was included and they allowed me a late check-out to minimize my wait at the gate to only 8-1/2 hours. Good thing, I've got time, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand in that Baggage Claim Complaint line today to file my claim.

BTW, I received a “Were You Satisfied With Your Flight?” survey from United this morning. Oh, my …what an opportunity. On second thought, I wonder if they bother to read them.

Since this is a 2-part blog spanning an overnight, look for the 13th Day of Christmas (yes, 12 was not quite enough) tomorrow. With any luck, 13 days should do it. I can only pray.

The Trials of Travel

 

Remember how I was worried about the snow a couple of days ago? After a few hours of shoveling with Nick, we got ourselves all cleared out and the roads are now fine. Boston's airport was closed for a short time, but it reopened and all seemed normal. Remember when my biggest worry was saying goodbye to Lin before I got on the plane? Well, that WAS my biggest worry until I got a casual e-mail from United Airlines stating that due to a “late arriving flight crew on January 3, the January 4 flight to San Francisco will be delayed.” Hmmm .... how does that affect my continuing flight to Sydney, I wondered? A flight status check confirmed the San Fran flight would get in just about the time the Sydney flight was departing. No, no, no!

I tried making a change on-line. No dice. I resorted to calling United. After being on hold for what seemed like hours (because it was), I was hoping for some really good suck-up agent who would get me on an earlier flight to San Fran, maybe upgrade me, throw in some wine and even a United Red Carpet Club pass. Being the patient woman I am, I maintained my cool while I maintained two phones on-hold to two different United customer service numbers. A little known bit of United trivia … they synchronize the on-hold music (Rhapsody in Blue), so I was listening to it in stereo. I wasn't amused. I had lots to do before leaving and being on-hold was not one of them. Lin took over for potty breaks.

Ah, 1-1/2 hours later, a perky agent asked how she could help me. I explained my problem, she looked up the reservation and promptly put me on hold … then dropped the call. I started over. An hour later, a young man with an Indian accent attempted to help. He would arrange to put me on an American flight to San Francisco. Oops … sorry, American has no room. Could I delay my flight till Sunday … nope, make that Monday? You see, the problem is there is no room on San Fran flights from Boston till Monday. No, make that Tuesday. How about you keep the same delayed flight tonight and spend the night in San Francisco, recover all your baggage there, transport it to a hotel overnight and come back to the airport and hang around till tomorrow night at 10:30 pm when a United flight will whisk me off to Sydney, no problems. Sure … that sounds dandy. Book it, Danno.

I'm frustrated; I'm agitated; I'm aggravated. I'm trying to look at this as part of the adventure of travel, but I'm not being very successful. The good news? I'm 2,700 miles and 6.5 hours closer to David after this flight plus I'll have some time for … something. The bad news? Besides being delayed and hanging around for hours? I'm now traveling with a cauliflower ear due to holding the phone to my head for so long.

On the 12th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …

Twelve damned delays (this was NOT from my true love, believe me!)

Eleven more hours of travelin' (and then some)

Ten hearts a'leapin

Nine frantic fixes

Eight bulky boat parts

Seven quests for hardware

Six shiny shackles

Five I miss you's

Four galley updates

Three e-mailed errands

Two bigger duffels and a

Christmas morning greeting on Skype

Uses for Your Digital Camera other than Souvenir Photos

 

This post is a modification of an article that appeared in Ocean Navigator earlier this year. Hope you'll enjoy. Any questions? Feel free to comment or email us.

When I first bought a digital camera more than a decade ago, the photo results were mediocre at best (as was the photographer) and the camera's use was limited to taking quick pictures of scenic views and people we met along the way. I still relied on my old Pentax 35mm for “good” photos.

It's no secret that digital cameras have come a long way since then. The photos are high quality. The optical zoom capabilities are outstanding without lugging around extra lenses. Image stabilization eliminates tremors when using the high magnification, so you don't always need to rely on a tripod. There's no film to carry around. You can take a hundred shots or a thousand and it doesn't cost anything for film processing. The results are immediate and can be stored easily. Most importantly, we've found that digital cameras have many more uses than just taking photos to show our friends.

While offshore, we've used our digital camera on many occasions to confirm the name on a ship's transom or its country flag when we couldn't quite decipher it using the binoculars because of the motion of the boat. Optical zoom coupled with image stabilization makes getting a clear shot easy even for us non-professional photographers. There have been times when something floating in the distance is definitely something to be avoided. Identifying exactly what it is becomes not only important to us, but also provides us with the necessary information to alert the local Coast Guard and other cruisers in the area of a floating obstacle. In one case, a huge plastic oil tank about half the size of the boat was just bobbing in the water.

Sometimes you need a photo for a better view simply because you don't believe what you're actually seeing!

Forget which bottom paint you used last time? Take a photo of the can and date it, so you'll know the brand and type you used previously. Some countries (like Australia) want proof that you've anti-fouled within the last six months. If you did it yourself, you don't have a boatyard receipt for the labor, but you can produce a dated picture of the paint, receipt and the boat bottom which usually suffices.

Closer to shore, we frequently take pictures of markers to confirm that we are where we think we are and to get a better look at the coastline. Coastal navigation is certainly made easier and safer by identifying landmarks with certainty. There are times, especially in the South Pacific, when the GPS and chartplotter tell us one thing, but our eyes and the digital camera tell us another. There's never a doubt about which to trust. Low-lying reefs are easy to miss with your naked eye, but the camera provides a close-up view without being so close and facilitates locating easy to miss entry passes and breaks in the reef line. There are also signs ashore meant for sailors, but many times too far away to see until it's too late.

Have you ever seen a screw just lying on the deck and wondered where it came from? It's easy enough to check the stanchions, mast pulpit and things at deck level on our daily walk around. But when you can't figure out where it came from on deck, the next logical choice is up. The digital camera has saved many a trip up the mast when we confirmed all screws and bolts were in place and just kept looking on deck and eventually found the location for the missing screw. Alternatively, we once identified, in mid-transit across the Atlantic, that an errant screw had come from the spreader and we made haste to make it right. We've used the camera to help identify a broken sail slide on the mast track. It's also an easy way to check, in close detail, the condition of the sails when they're hoisted.

Probably the biggest time saver we've found for re-assembling whatever we've taken apart is to have a digital photo on hand. When we unstepped and refitted our mast a couple of years ago, we photographed every piece of hardware on the mast, boom and spreaders in place before taking it apart. Each location was numbered and the associated hardware was tagged and put into ziploc bags so it could be easily identified and located. Whether it be a winch, electrical wire routing, the mast or the engine, we take photos in advance of anything to be disassembled in order to confirm the correct replacement of parts and their orientation. This has saved many a headache and hastens the re-assembly process considerably.

We also take photos of all of our personal and boat paperwork. Current U.S. Coast Guard documentation is necessary for proof of ownership and to check into foreign countries. Certificates of insurance are many times required for marinas. When saved as jpeg's, these documents are easy to print and photographing them avoids the necessity of having a scanner aboard. We photograph passports, licenses, social security cards and any other critical vital records to have them on hand without having originals aboard. Since we're rarely in the US when documentation papers arrive, my sister photographs the document and sends it and any other important mail she receives via email. This always suffices until it's convenient to mail originals to us although in all honesty, we're finding it less and less important to have anything original aboard.

What about when we're ashore? I always take the camera for blog and website photo purposes, of course. Many times, however, I take photos of park trails, particular ads with addresses or phone numbers I find of interest and of course, bus and train scheds. I don't remember ever returning to the boat without having at least something of interest on my camera.

Sure, there are image stabilized binoculars now, but the starting price for the low end models is about the same price as a good digital camera. Binoculars don't take photos and the amount of magnification offered is significantly less than the newest digital cameras. We prefer to have a camera that has multiple uses.

My current camera is a Canon SX50HS with 50X optical zoom and 12.1 megapixel resolution. It costs under US$400. It has an automatic point and shoot mode as well as several other options for more customized photography. We highly recommend the Canon, although we're sure there are several other options out there that are comparable. Optical zoom and image stabilization are two main factors to consider when making a purchasing decision for an on-board camera for the uses that we've discussed. We now consider our digital camera part of our essential boat gear.